How
to Make Cupcakes

I learned how to make cupcakes when I was quite young. The simple reason is that they were quicker to bake than a cake. This meant that I could eat them quicker!

Strawberry Shortcake Cupcake

Cupcake recipes can be traced back to the 1700’s in England. In the nineteen century the love for this small cake began to grow and after the middle of the century these recipes exploded. I believe the growing popularity of cupcakes, much like other foods such as the sandwich, was a “sign of the times”. Due to the growing work force in the factories, time was becoming more valuable. These small serving, sometimes make ahead recipes, became important in the lives. Quite often they were packed in lunch boxes to take to work.

There became such a demand for these small cakes that even the Hostess Company learned how to make cupcakes. Their chocolate devil’s food and my favorite, the orange ones still stand out in my mind. Both of these were filled with white cream and oh, they were so delicious and convenient to buy. The sales of these products soared; people were buying them to snack on and not just for lunches.

Of course, before the interest grew, there were no so called “cupcake pans” or the paper cupcake liners. Even when I learned how to make cupcakes I had none of these conveniences. Mom taught me to make half of a regular cake recipe and to bake them in two little (rejected) baking pans. I say “rejected” because my older sisters were always passing their older things to us to use. We only had two of these pans so I had to remove the cakes to bake the others. It was good thing that these little cakes baked quickly.

When I learned how to make cupcakes, I also never had any of those paper liners. Mom did buy me some of the paper liners when we saw them available at our store but I still did not have a cupcake pan. I could not wait to try these papers out. I made the batter, placed the papers on a tray and filled with batter. Have you ever tried this? Well I found out quickly that they do not hold the shape without the cupcake pan for support; I had flat cakes.

My older sister Gloria learned how to make cupcakes many years prior to my learning. When I was little I loved to go to her house; she always had the neatest things. One day when I was there she had made a lot of cupcakes and frosted them with all colors of icing. They were so beautiful and tasted so good! Of course, she had all the pans, papers and everything to master the job; I was so envious.

Eventually I learned how to make cupcakes with all the luxuries of baking them. The one thing that did bother me was back then the cupcake papers only came in pastel colors. Sometimes I just wanted white ones; not pink, blue, yellow or green. Needless to say, today I am stocked with cupcake liners in all colors and sizes.

TO MAKE SMALL CAKES: Fill flat bottomed ice cream cones half full with cake batter and bake. Top with frosting and decorating confections.

NOTE: When filling cupcakes for even sizing use ¼ Cup of
batter for regular size cupcakes and ½ cup of batter for jumbo size.